Monday, 15 March 2010

The art of giving up...

May 7th 1945, German troops finally laid down their arms after six years of bloody, hell bent warfare.

I would wish anyone, trying to pinpoint a more significant example of surrender, good luck. Although I join the mass ranks of individuals who are eternally grateful for what was sacrificed during the Second World War to maintain our great nation’s liberty, my focus today is set solely on a much less significant mark in the history books.

In my opinion, the foundation for a real friendship is the ideology that you never give up, regardless of material circumstance. Of course, the beautiful thing about friendship is that there never has, and never will be, any written laws but given the chance there are certain shores that you naturally would never intentionally swim to...

So many waves to ride, such a small surfboard.

Recently I found myself laid flat, face down in the shallow, salty waters of regret as I failed to attend the celebration that had been planned for an old friend’s birthday. Granted, this was due to my own lack of sobriety at another friend’s gathering, which led to me spending my night with them instead. The next morning I promptly apologised for my no-show and offered to buy my old friend dinner. Never being the type to buy anyone dinner, I had made this offer simply for one purpose; to see my friend.

My offer was ignored and before long I realised that under the shallow waters, where I currently resided, lurked an ominous pit of quicksand. No, Craig, you’re not going anywhere just yet.

The entirety of the conversation I had with my ‘old friend’ is unimportant. What I will highlight was her apparent need to hurt my feelings. Perhaps she took pleasure in mocking personal battles that I have had to deal with over several years, or maybe her response was simply a product of the ‘tit for tat’ culture that seems to have engulfed at least part of her personality.Either way I was greeted with a torrent of abuse, underlined by several strongly negative interjections.

Finally, with her white flag of surrender waving frantically, it was suggested that we would never be friends. The quick sand dissolved and there has been no contact since.

Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.

When it comes to words I am anything but tone deaf, so when I stumbled across the above definition of ‘Art’ a chord was struck that has since been playing its way around my thoughts.

You see, I can’t help but feel that an unfair, perhaps even distorted, picture has been painted here. In fact, if this was the work of Van Gough I believe his other ear would be subject to the bread knife any time now.Has the person in question convinced themselves that I am just a bad person? Have they conveniently pieced a jigsaw together made of entirely misconstrued circumstance?

I am sincere enough to place on record how sorry I am for my mistakes, all of them, which have affected anyone.

You will be spared the speech of my sudden realisation as to who my real friends are. I’ve always known exactly who they are.